Essays in Risk Management for Crude Oil Markets

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Essays in Risk Management for Crude Oil Markets Essays in Risk Management for Crude Oil Markets by Abdullah Al Mansour A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Economics Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2012 c Abdullah Al Mansour 2012 I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract This thesis consists of three essays on risk management in crude oil markets. In the first essay, the valuation of an oil sands project is studied using real options approach. Oil sands production consumes substantial amount of natural gas during extracting and upgrading. Natural gas prices are known to be stochastic and highly volatile which introduces a risk factor that needs to be taken into account. The essay studies the impact of this risk factor on the value of an oil sands project and its optimal operation. The essay takes into account the co-movement between crude oil and natural gas markets and, accordingly, proposes two models: one incorporates a long-run link between the two markets while the other has no such link. The valuation problem is solved using the Least Square Monte Carlo (LSMC) method proposed by Longstaff and Schwartz (2001) for valuing American options. The valuation results show that incorporating a long-run relationship between the two markets is a very crucial decision in the value of the project and in its optimal operation. The essay shows that ignoring this long-run relationship makes the optimal policy sensitive to the dynamics of natural gas prices. On the other hand, incorporating this long-run relationship makes the dynamics of natural gas price process have a very low impact on valuation and the optimal operating policy. In the second essay, the relationship between the slope of the futures term structure, or the forward curve, and volatility in the crude oil market is investigated using a measure of the slope based on principal component analysis (PCA). The essay begins by reviewing the main theories of the relation between spot and futures prices and considering the implication of each theory on the relation between the slope of the forward curve and volatility. The diagonal VECH model of Bollerslev et al. (1988) was used to analyze the relationship between of the forward curve slope and the variances of the spot and futures prices and the covariance between them. The results show that there is a significant iii quadratic relationship and that exploiting this relation improves the hedging performance using futures contracts. The third essay attempts to model the spot price process of crude oil using the notion of convenience yield in a regime switching framework. Unlike the existing studies, which assume the convenience yield to have either a constant value or to have a stochastic behavior with mean reversion to one equilibrium level, the model of this essay extends the Brennan and Schwartz (1985) model to allows for regime switching in the convenience yield along with the other parameters. In the essay, a closed form solution for the futures price is derived. The parameters are estimated using an extension to the Kalman filter proposed by Kim (1994). The regime switching one-factor model of this study does a reasonable job and the transitional probabilities play an important role in shaping the futures term structure implied by the model. iv Acknowledgments I offer my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Margaret Insley and Dr. Tony Wirjanto, for their continuous support during my doctoral study. Without their time and energy they offered me, this project would have been very hard to complete. Their knowledge, experience, commitment, guidance and patience have contributed a big part of this thesis. I am also indebted to the other committee members, Dr. Dinghai Xu, Dr. Alain-Desire Nimubona and Dr. Kenneth Vetzal for their discussions and comments on my thesis Of course my deepest gratitude go to my father, Mohammad Almansour. I owe to my father something I can neither express nor repay. Thank you my father for your everlasting support and continuous encouragement. I also would like to thank my mother, Dolayyel Almansour, for the unconditional love and constant prayers which were like the light I see through. Her voice over the phone was a great source of motivation, especially when I hear her say: see you soon Abdullah. Foremost amongst the individuals to whom I am thankful is my wife, Dalal Alhammad. I owe her a grate favor that I am sure I will be still owing throughout my life. Indeed, It is a great blessing to work in such a project with such an accompany filled with inspiring love, support, patience and since of humor. I keep asking the God that whatever comes out of this success to be a source of blessing and happiness to you. I would like to thank my lovely sisters, Eman, Huda, and Lateefa for there love, concern and encouragement. Special thanks to Lateefa for taking care of my Mom. I am also thankful to my father-, mother-in-low, Hmoud Alhammad and Lolwah Alsabt, for their concern and honest prayers. Special thanks to my grandmother in-low, Umm Ali Alsabt, for her endless and honest prayers. v Many thanks to all my friends at Waterloo who made my graduate study very special and my stay in Canada feel like home. In particular, Dr. Ahmad Alojairi, Dr. Walid Bahamdan and Dr. Abdullah Basiouni. It is not the coffee we were drinking together almost every day that would keep me awake late at night, it is the honest friendship, the critical thinking and the great experience we shared that would keep me awake in my life. By the way, it's my turn! I would like to thank the department of Economics for providing the support and facilities I have needed to produce and complete my thesis. vi Dedication To my parents... See you soon. To my wife... Here you go. To my little twins... Here I am. vii Table of Contents List of Figures ix List of Tables x 1 Introductory Chapter 1 2 The Impact of Stochastic Extraction Cost on the Value of an Exhaustible Resource: the Case of the Alberta Oil Sands 8 2.1 Introduction . .8 2.2 Oil Sands Background . 11 2.3 Co-movement of Crude Oil and Natural Gas Prices . 14 2.4 Modeling the Dynamics of Natural Gas and Crude Oil Prices . 20 2.4.1 Seasonality . 24 2.4.2 Futures Pricing . 24 2.4.3 Estimation Procedure . 28 2.5 Oil Sands Valuation Model . 29 viii 2.6 Data Description for Estimation and Simulation . 32 2.7 Results . 36 2.7.1 Estimation Results . 37 2.7.2 Valuation Results . 41 2.8 Concluding Remarks . 49 3 The Relationship Between Volatility and the Forward Curve in Crude Oil Markets 51 3.1 Introduction . 51 3.2 Theoretical Background . 54 3.3 PCA Slope Measure . 61 3.4 Volatilities Model Specification . 65 3.5 Data Description . 67 3.6 Estimation Methodology . 73 3.7 Estimation Results . 75 3.8 Application: Minimum Variance Hedge Ratio . 79 3.9 Concluding Remarks . 82 4 Contango and Backwardation in the Crude Oil Market: A Regime Switch- ing Approach 84 4.1 Introduction . 84 4.2 Convenience Yield in Commodities Price Modeling . 87 ix 4.3 Regime Switching Model Specification . 89 4.4 Futures Pricing . 95 4.5 Estimation Methodology . 96 4.6 Data Description . 101 4.7 Estimation Results . 104 4.7.1 Model Comparison . 111 4.7.2 The Impact of the Transitional Probabilities . 112 4.8 Concluding Remarks . 117 5 Conclusion 119 Bibliography 123 APPENDICES 132 A Appendix to Chapter 4 133 A.1 The Definition of the Q Measure . 133 A.2 Xt in the Q Measure . 134 A.3 Futures Price Formula Derivation . 135 A.4 Hamilton (1994) Filtration Procedure . 136 x List of Figures 2.1 WTI Crude Oil and HH Natural Gas Prices . 14 2.2 Crude Oil and Natural Gas Correlation . 16 2.3 Crude Oil and Natural Gas Correlation Term Structure . 20 2.4 Example of Natural Gas Forward Curve . 34 2.5 Implied Forward Curves . 40 2.6 Oil Sand Project Value . 42 2.7 The Impact of N. Gas Long Term Component Volatility . 43 2.8 Project Value as a Function of N. Gas Long Term component . 45 2.9 Impact of N. Gas Process on the Switching Prices Under Model I : Backwar- dation Case . 46 2.10 Impact of N. Gas Process on the Switching Prices Under Model II : Back- wardation Case . 47 2.11 Impact of N. Gas Process on the Switching Prices Under Model I : Contango Case....................................... 48 2.12 Impact of N. Gas Process on the Switching Prices Under Model II : Contango Case....................................... 50 xi 3.1 WTI Crude Oil Forward Curve at Different Points in Time . 52 3.2 PCA Loadings of the Futures Price Returns . 63 3.3 Loadings of the 1st PC of the Centered Futures Prices . 64 3.4 Time Series of the Relative Slope Factor It .................. 65 3.5 Time Series of the Slope Factor, It, and the Actual Spot Returns Volatility, σa ........................................ 71 3.6 Scatter Plot of the Slope Factor, It, and the Actual Spot Returns Volatility, σa ........................................ 72 3.7 Time Series of The Hedging Portfolio Return . 82 4.1 The Implied Forward Curve of Gibson and Schwartz (1990) Model . 90 4.2 Crude Oil Price and Return Series .
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